


where we made it our last touch of the night

by alwaysayes



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, M/M, Rain, Ritchie Valens is Commonly Referenced Sorry!!, drag that headcanon from my deadd hands! begone thots!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 00:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14273253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alwaysayes/pseuds/alwaysayes
Summary: Ronan nodded and turned up the stereo, bopping his head to the soft music. So he was in one of those moods, and not the angry kind. Adam didn’t like the angry Ronan. He loved every version of Ronan, but he liked the angry kind the least. Angry Ronan was the Ronan who street raced and drank himself shitter than Adam’s car, the Ronan that yelled and punched things, the Ronan that slept with his feet on the walls and blasted angry music in the early hours of the morning (or the late hours of the night- sometimes they bled together when he was pissed off enough). Adam loved every Ronan, but the best Ronan was this one. The one who sat quietly in the driver’s seat, softly humming along to Sufjan Stevens and pressing his fingers into Adam’s thigh as he drove down the dirt roads of Henrietta.  This was the best Ronan, and probably the closest of the Ronans to the pre-Niall Ronan that Gansey once knew.or, boys like Adam were made of dust and rainwater, and boys like Ronan were made of malachite and salt.





	where we made it our last touch of the night

**Author's Note:**

> i just really like the rain. im just like adam.
> 
> title from i walked alone by sufjan stevens!!
> 
> there are no trigger warnings except for one possible one talking about ganseys nightmares!!

It was raining again. 

Rain in Henrietta was nothing uncommon, it was raining more often that the sun shone, but for some reason this time it felt different to Adam. 

The raindrops were clinging to the windows of the break room at Boyd’s as he slowly chewed his turkey and cheese sandwich (extra mayonnaise with pickles) and watched the drops of water race each other down the panes of glass. He used to do it much more when he was younger and would ride to work with his father, but those times had come to an end. 

It was a slow day in the garage, probably because of the small tsunami outside, but that didn’t mean he had less work to do, it just meant that there were less people coming in and complaining about things they could fix themselves. Adam liked the slower days, because if there was one thing he hated it was the people who came into the shop for every single small problem they had, because although it helped his pay, it made him work overtime constantly. 

Adam was lying to himself. Every day at Boyd’s was slow by nature. It was days like this that Adam had to endure and tell himself he fought for. He fought for the liberty of spending an entire day at work. He fought for the liberty of having the time to spread the extra mayonnaise on his sandwich every morning. He fought for what every other kid his age had handed to them.  

When he was younger he used to sit in his bedroom in the double wide during storms. He would lay with his face towards the ceiling in his battered t-shirt and pajama pants, blankets under his back, and listen to the rain hitting the metal, making the same sound that a bag of spilled marbles did. He would lay there listening to the rain until the sun came in through his window or the rain came to a stop.

He didn’t do that anymore, though. Ronan was afraid of the rain, so instead of lying with his eyes on the light up stars in Ronan’s bedroom he lay with his eyes on Ronan, watching his shoulders shake like the thunder that rattled through Monmouth Manufacturing. Adam did not mind this, though. He loved the rain, and he loved Ronan. 

When his shift ended, the rain was still beating the walls of Boyd’s and painting all of Henrietta grey with a thick wet fog. Adam breathed in the wet air as he stepped out. 

“Shit,” He said, remembering the conditions of the Shitbox’s functions. It wouldn’t run properly in any precipitation and  _ fuck.  _

He grabbed his phone from his pocket and clicked on Ronan’s contact as the rain poured over him, thunder cracking. But he couldn’t go back inside- that would take advantage of the hospitality of his job. 

Ronan picked up on the first ring.

“What do you want, Parrish?” He asked gruffly. He had probably just woken up and Adam had gone and  _ called him  _ and  _ bothered him _ . 

“Uh,” Adam said. 

“Well?”

“I-I need a ride.” Adam sighed. He hated asking for help.

Ronan, for as long as Adam had known him, always extended an open hand. Rides, food,  _ money.  _ Adam always said no because taking advantage of what people give him is a shitty thing to do. 

“Sure.” Ronan said. Adam exhaled. 

“I’ll be there in ten.” Ronan said, and Adam could hear him fall off the bed. 

“It’s a twenty minute drive-”

“Yeah, if you drive like  _ Gansey _ .” Ronan gagged.

“I- okay. I’ll see you.” 

Ronan hung up with no other words.

Adam stood out there in the pouring rain, letting it soak through his t-shirt and into his skin. He missed this. 

When he was a child and both his parents were at work during the summer, the other kids in the trailer park would bust open a fire hydrant that sat in the middle of all the roads of the neighbourhood. Someone would pull out their CD player and they would play in the streets until all the adults came back. It was the only thing Adam missed about his childhood- dancing in the ice cold water and feeling the sun burning into his skin. 

He missed the fire hydrant and the sneaky kisses his first ‘girlfriend’ would give him, the popsicles his neighbours always seemed to have, the Henrietta sun searing into the skin on his nose leaving him with freckles. He missed everything except his own home.

Ronan was there. Suddenly. The BMW engine roared as he drove onto the curb, cursing silently under his breath. 

“Get in, fucker.” Ronan said.

“Oh, shit. You’re like soaking wet. Why didn’t you go back inside-”

“I like the rain.” Adam said simply.

“Of course you do. You’re gonna get even more wet, what the fuck, get in the car.” 

Ronan pushed the passenger seat door open and patted the seat. 

“Get in. You’re making my car get all rainy.”

Adam laughed. 

His laugh was something else. It wasn’t the laugh he wore around Gansey, the laugh he wore when Blue said something he wasn’t sure how to reach to. It was a genuine laugh. It came deep from within his throat, hearty and deep. It made a shiver run down Ronan’s spine. Or maybe it was the cold needley rain. He never knew around Adam. The Adam Who Laughed was different in his head than the Adam Who Worked, but maybe they melted into each other when it rained. Maybe Adam was Just Adam all the time. 

Adam got in the car. 

“Where are we going?” He asked, buckling up and trying not to drip all over the leather seats. With Ronan, it was never just a car ride back to Monmouth. 

“Are you hungry?” Ronan asked in return. “I’m hungry.” 

“Well, what do you want?” Adam asked back. Ronan wasn’t actually hungry, and Adam knew that. 

“What do you want?” 

“I’m in the mood for some fries.” Adam replied simply. Ronan nodded and turned up the stereo, bopping his head to the soft music. So he was in one of those moods, and not the angry kind. Adam didn’t like the angry Ronan. He loved every version of Ronan, but he liked the angry kind the least. Angry Ronan was the Ronan who street raced and drank himself shitter than Adam’s car, the Ronan that yelled and punched things, the Ronan that slept with his feet on the walls and blasted angry music in the early hours of the morning (or the late hours of the night- sometimes they bled together when he was pissed off enough). Adam loved every Ronan, but the best Ronan was this one. The one who sat quietly in the driver’s seat, softly humming along to Sufjan Stevens and pressing his fingers into Adam’s thigh as he drove down the dirt roads of Henrietta.  This was the best Ronan, and probably the closest of the Ronans to the pre-Niall Ronan that Gansey once knew. 

They drove in near silence, the only sound besides the engine being the gentle and angry banjo playing over Ronan’s speakers. The rain remained pelting over the roof of the car, slamming into the metal almost as aggressively as arrows being shot at a deer.  

They pulled into a Dairy Queen drive-thru, and Adam sighed at the smell of their burgers in the air. 

“What do you want?” Ronan asked. “I’m gonna get a burger and fries, but I kind of want a Blizzard. So you can get whatever.”

This was the Ronan that hid his charity as a casual thing, the one who acted like a number three meal at a Dairy Queen and a Mint Oreo Blizzard was nothing to him, because it wasn’t. Not like it was for Adam. 

For Adam, a number three and a Mint Oreo Blizzard was an $11.46 he would never get back. For Ronan, it was just the tiniest part of his fortune, and he didn’t care about getting it back. For Adam, it was barely more than an hour of work. For Ronan, it was nothing. 

“I’ll take a number three. And a Mint Oreo Blizzard.”

“Okay.”

They ordered in the drive-thru and ate their food in the silence of the car. Adam tried to hide his smile when Ronan stole a bite of his food and he did the same in return. It was nothing to either of them because they had fallen into a routine. 

They weren’t just two random kids anymore. They weren’t just Robert Parrish’s son and the son of the late businessman Niall Lynch. They were Adam Parrish, a self-made man, and Ronan Lynch, himself and nothing else. They were allowed to follow a routine. They were allowed this. Adam reminded himself of that every time Ronan kissed his hands or his neck, reminded himself of that every time Ronan bought him a meal he wouldn’t have to pay him back for, reminded himself of that every time he and Ronan laid down shirtless in Ronan’s Monmouth bed. He did not have to get this time back of his life. It was his time to waste. 

“I’m tired.”  Adam said, after finishing his food.

“Will you come back to Monmouth with me?” Ronan asked.

In his words, Adam knew there was a shred of fear. He would either have to lay in his bed while the rain pelted the ceiling and reminded him of better times or have Adam for comfort. He would either sit in a cold sweat as the rain washed through Henrietta or curl around Adam’s boyish form and fall into a nightmareless sleep.

“Sure.” Adam said. But it was more than just a yes. 

The drive back to Monmouth was high energy, or more so than the ride to Dairy Queen, which was Ronan’s attempt to keep Adam awake as long as he could. 

“You’re still wet.” Ronan said when they pulled up to the warehouse.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “I guess I am.” 

“Do you still have any clothes here?” Ronan asked him, glancing over. 

“I thought I did. But I guess the clothes I left here aren’t really mine anymore.” He responded, looking warily over at Ronan who sat in Adam’s Ritchie Valens t-shirt. 

Ronan fought back a blush, sucking in his lips. 

“Shut up.” He finally managed, flustered. 

“We should probably go in. It’s like, ten, Gansey’s probably worried.” Adam said, after another beat of silence.

“Let him be worried. It’s his personality, he was born a seventy year old British guy in some senator’s kid’s body.” Ronan remarked.

“I’m not making out with you in your car.” Adam said with another laugh. 

“Shame.” Ronan snarked back.

Adam unbuckled. Ronan unlocked the door. It was still raining. 

Ronan unbuckled and climbed out of the car, pulling his leather jacket over his head to shield himself from the rain. Adam got out, slamming the door beside him. 

They let themselves into Monmouth, Adam shaking the water from his hair as they walked in. Gansey lay on the couch, half eaten bowl of ramen noodles sat on the coffee table while some German documentary played on the television. He was asleep with his glasses on and in his clothes, only pillow his sweater. He rolled restlessly around the couch, shaking in his sleep. 

“Wake up, nerd.” He said, shoving Gansey on the shoulder.

“Hm?” Gansey startled awake.

“You were being annoying. Anyway, I’m home.” Ronan said once Gansey had come to. 

“Oh. I was dreaming about…” He said. He didn’t need to finish the sentence. The other two knew what he meant. 

Ever since he was younger, he dreamt of hornets. Big, angry hornets, like the ones that had turned him into whatever he was from a child so long ago. He tried to ignore the thoughts. He didn’t like the buzzing of Ronan’s phone, of the streetlights, or of his own head. It made him dream like that, and he did not like the way he died in his dreams. 

“Finish your ramen before Chainsaw decides to.” Ronan said to him. Gansey blinked. 

“Oh.” Gansey said, his eyes widening. “Jane is asleep in my room.” 

“Oh my God.” Ronan said. Adam stood silently still.

“I’m going to sleep on the couch, then.” Gansey decided.

“Unless,” Ronan said. He looked over at Adam. 

“Do you want me to go ask Blue if she’ll sleep in the same bed as Gansey?”  Adam asked, raising his dusty eyebrows.

Ronan grinned, all teeth and sharklike. 

Adam sighed. 

“Will you?” Gansey asked. It was so hard to say no to him, especially in his pathetic state. 

Adam sighed once more.

“I guess. Let me go change and get ready for bed, I’m exhausted.” 

Gansey nodded ferociously and Ronan followed Adam to his room, trailing behind him and dragging his feet. 

Ronan’s room was something of a sanctuary, and not at all what Adam had expected the first time he went in. The walls were a light grey, and Chainsaw’s cage hung in a far corner of the room, surrounded by flowers that somehow never died. His queen size bed was a stark contrast to Adam’s twin, and it was covered in fluffy pillows. His bedding was of course, black, but didn’t look dark in the way his room was laid out. Posters lined the walls, and a picture of him and Adam that Blue had taken sat on the nightstand, right next to his clock and other things that cluttered his nightstand. Adam had never thought Ronan to be a sentimental person, but he thought back to what Gansey had once told him about Ronan before his father’s death and understood. He held onto what he had, when and after he had it. 

Adam took his shirt off, and Ronan leaned against the closed door. Something in the corner of Ronan’s room caught Adam’s eye, and he shook the image from his mind of an old Ritchie Valens vinyl on the turntable in the corner of Ronan’s room. He shook away the thought of his mother teaching him to dance to old Buddy and Ritchie songs in the kitchen of the trailer, before things got bad. He shook everything from his mind. 

Ronan looked him in the eyes.

“You think too much.” He said to him, quietly. 

“I can’t help it.” Adam confessed.

“I know.” Ronan said in return, looking Adam in the eyes.

It was still raining.

In his head, Adam equated the blanket of rain covering the roof of Monmouth as a blanket of safety, in the same way that when his skin was against Ronan’s he felt safe. With Ronan and the rain, he felt more safe than ever. 

“I still have to help Gansey.” Adam said. Ronan stepped closer. 

“I know.” Ronan said again.

Ronan apparently knew a lot of things. 

Ronan stepped even closer.  

Adam exhaled, standing there shirtless and in nothing but his sticky wet denim with his hair dripping everywhere. Ronan laid his hands on his shoulders and pulled him close in some weird version of a slow dance to nonexistent music. Ronan lay his head on Adam’s shoulders.

“If we were normal teenagers it wouldn’t take a literal monsoon for us to slow dance.” Adam said suddenly, still swaying with Ronan.

“If we were normal teenagers, we’d be doing a different kind of dance.” Ronan said back.

“Come on then, snake, let’s rattle.” Adam laughed back. 

“Wait, hold on.” Ronan said, peeling himself off Adam. “I wanna put music on.” 

“I swear,” Adam groaned, tilting his head back. “If you’re going to put on that damned song-” 

“ _ No _ ,” Ronan insisted. “I’m not going to.” He walked over to the shelves that held his records and the ones that were technically Adam’s but had somehow made their way to his collection. He put on something slow- Adam thought it must have once belonged to Aurora- and made his way back over to Adam. With the rain and the smooth, jazzy piano and the only light being the lamp on Ronan’s desk it felt like something he never got to have. 

In that moment, Ronan decided that he didn’t hate the rain so much. 

In that moment, Adam decided that for once in his life, Gansey could wait. 

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr and twitter!! im czerny182 on both :)))


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